Economies and Darwinism - Socialism vs Capitalism - EU vs US - 2012 vs 2019

As I listened to a CNBC discussion of economic Socialism vs Free Market, the Lottery Incentive occurred to me. What is the Lottery Incentive? It is the premise that folks understand the risk of "throwing money away" when participating in the lottery. Yet the higher the pot, the more people are willing to shell out to take that risk so that they might attain "the dream".

Free market risk concepts in entrepreneurialism are not dissimilar.

The higher the reward, the greater the chance potential entrepreneurs will risk time and capital to "win the pot". Nowhere is that traditionally more apparent than in the US. The higher the reward, the more people will dream to attain it. The more entrepreneurs, the more new ideas, the more new approaches to problem solving, the stronger the population.

Somewhere amongst those many offerings, "Darwinism of a market economy" will see the cream rise, and the "cream" is rewarded for it. Those are the foundations of American success, markets and capitalism. Those foundations are attitudinal, embedded within our psyche. They are the driver of American Exceptionalism.

The exceptualism psyche applies not just to invention, but extends to innovation. E.g., when a recession hits, American individuals and industry are more likely to seek innovative solution, and then to effectively recover, than are our socialist counterparts, even though the latter are supported by government. It is essentially akin to economic Darwinism at work.

The population as a whole grows stronger as result. It is an important nuance, because in the end GDP is of course a function of the population rather than government making the money. Despite apparent cruelty in attaining the result, a free-market population becomes more resilient. If GDP suffers, so too does the ability of a socialist government to supplement underperformance.

The comparison is of species with wide-exposure to survival-of-fittest in evolution vs populations whose protections prevented such exposure. As the fittest of former survive, they evolve through multiple extinctions, growing stronger through the challenge. Ultimately the "Darwin exposed" population is far more adept than its protected brethren.

All of which bring us to Socialism vs Capitalism - EU vs US - 2012 vs 2019. In 2012, the more socialist EU already under performed the US on a per capita basis. However as a whole, EU GDP outstripped US GDP $17.3T to $16.2T. Fast forward to 2018 and the numbers are $18.8T for the EU vs $20.1T for the US.

Pushing ahead with American Exceptionalism is what MAGA is about.